It’s hard to believe that after this, the next time I’ll be in Kenya will be at the Nairobi Airport for the flight home. I’ve come to think of my life here like summer house might feel. I’ve never had one, but I imagine you get to feel comfortable in your home away from home. You explore the neighborhood  find your favorite coffee shop and begin to know which neighbors will appear on which block as you walk around the town. You note little things: this particularly sweet smelling flowerplot, these funny looking cracks in the side walk. You get used to the sunrises, which are the same sun as back home but somehow newer and more beautiful each day. You take comfort in the blanket of pin-prick stars that tucks you in at night. Your mind weaves a quilt of smaller memories from this place,and you wrap it around yourself. But it’s a summer home, and you’re hitting the snooze button curled in your quilt of moments, dreading the time when you have to wake up to reality. Summer vacations end, because as familiar as you’ve become to a place, it isn’t yours. Not forever.

So tomorrow morning I’m getting up at five for one last walk beneath Mt. Kilimanjaro, a shower and hopefully one more chance to cook breakfast with the staff I’ve come to love. At 6:30 we eat and at 7 we leave. Off to a new country, a new adventure, new memories waiting to be woven and patched in.

But for now, I’m still looking for the Southern Cross.